Scrub garments are uniforms typically worn by doctors, nurses, and other medical workers in such places as operating theatres, and are used to reduce the chance of infection to patients from the medical staff own clothes. Scrubs usually consist of a top piece and a bottom piece, thus comprising a ‘set’. Tops and bottoms are stocked in various sizes for individual wearers. Typically scrubs are issued/dispensed as a set.
When scrubs become soiled they are returned to a soiled basket or container whereby they are returned to laundry for washing. Once cleaned they are made available for reuse. Periodically scrub uniforms are disposed of and replaced due to the fact they become worn from repeated wear and from the stresses of repeated cleaning and repeat sterilising.
Hospitals and medical centres make scrubs available to their staff as part of their job function, and typically each user is only permitted to have access to a limited number of scrub uniforms at any time. Typically users tend to abuse this restriction by storing scrubs in personal lockers to ensure they can obtain further sets without delay or having to gain further authorisation. It is not uncommon for scrubs to be taken home or worn home. The hoarding of extra scrubs and the improper use of scrubs causes problems as inventories need to be replaced on a regular basis, and low stocks can cause unavailability of scrubs when they are most required.
The stock of scrubs can be further compromised by careless handling by users. Often scrubs are just left available on shelves or in free-access lockers making the stocks vulnerable to abuse, e.g. scrubs can be pulled off shelves dislodging others and causing them to fall to the floor to then become contaminated and subsequently requiring unnecessary rewashing. The abuse of scrub usage can be expensive and hospital scrub replacement budgets can rise significantly due to all these problems.
Some hospitals enforce a manual uniform service, such that a uniform room is managed by staff on a daily basis. Users of uniforms and scrubs are then required to sign for their uniforms and return them in order to obtain fresh replacement sets. This method works to some degree but there is a cost overhead mainly due to the fact larger hospitals typically need multiple rooms managed on site, and due to the fact scrubs are required 24-7 the uniform rooms need constant staffing around the clock, significantly increasing the cost of managing the service.
As an alternative, mechanical dispensers have been proposed. Due to the fact scrub dispensers need to be located close to operating room areas and corridors it is important to ensure the machine is as compact and small as possible and with adequate stocks of scrub-wear to satisfy demand. Also, due to the fact staff then become reliant on the dispensers to issue scrubs, the system must be reliable and easily restocked with minimal down time.
The problem of automatic dispensing of scrub items is particularly difficult due to the nature of the folded fabric. Since the folded fabric items are not of rigid shape and size they cannot be dispensed through other known machines types such as those dispensing cans, bottles, video CDs or cigarette packets. The scrub item cannot easily be manipulated and transported within the machine, like the above described items.
Also, known scrub dispensing systems currently available suffer from various other shortcomings.
For example, some machines store scrubs on shelves, or in stacks, such that, when dispensing, the scrub is either pushed off the shelf automatically or allowed to drop down a slope to an open hatch door in the base of the unit. These systems can suffer from jamming, and they tend to be unnecessarily big due to extra space required for the slope or chute.
Some machines operate on a rotary basis, where a drum containing a number of compartments, on a number of levels, which is then rotated around as a whole until the chosen scrub article is positioned behind a locked door. The door is then unlocked for issue. These systems tend to be big units as they must allow for a large rotating drum which also makes them somewhat more complicated and expensive.
Some machines, such of described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,985, are similar to mailbox pigeon-holes where an array of compartments has a door in front restricting user access. The nature of having multiple doors makes the unit particularly complex, expensive and vulnerable to abuse where users can damage the fragile small doors.
The described embodiment aims to improve over these known designs and provide a system that is both cost-effective, easy to maintain and of a compact size.